‘We did not vote to move away from weekly bin collections-as an authority we can not do that.’

Social media posts yesterday reported that Havering Council had voted to make the collection of bins, a fortnightly basis. As we stated yesterday, this was inaccurate and misleading. The council actually voted on an amendment that stated that the ‘council agrees that this Administration will carefully consider responses from residents in the current budget consultation and changes to the council’s financial position together with any changes from the Environment Bill, before taking any final decision on the integrated waste collection contract.’ That was the vote that was passed 31 to 16. It did not state that the council had already agreed to the collection of waste on a fortnightly basis.

Havering’s Leader of the Council Councillor Ray Morgon told the Havering Daily: “We haven’t agreed anything, we are not in a position to agree anything. We voted on the amendment that stressed we will listen to residents first before making any decisions.

“We were given a list of savings we could make to help keep us afloat and one of the options was to collect waste fortnightly that would make a £650,000 saving. But as stated in the amendment, we are not making any changes until we listen to all the residents concerns and take in to consideration the new Environment Bill.”

Cabinet Member Barry Mugglestone told the Havering Daily:”The current contract for waste collection ends in August next year and it went out for bidding. We have now agreed a new contractor on a like to like service, so nothing has changed.

“The Conservative motion sadly is to play games about the Administration going away from weekly bin collections. This is not the case, the fact is we can’t as an authority move away from weekly collections.”

Romford Town ward Councillor David Taylor read out a motion that stated: “This Council supports weekly bin collection and agrees that Cabinet should commit to retaining a weekly bin collection service. with plans for containerisation to be put to the public in a fully costed consultation.”

The motion by Romford Town ward Councillor David Taylor and the amendment voted on by the Havering Residents Association,